


Whoops part deux

by Hal_is_absolutely_not_ladylike



Series: Whoops [2]
Category: Leverage, The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, Multi, look man im not drunk this time these idiots just wouldnt shut up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26080411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hal_is_absolutely_not_ladylike/pseuds/Hal_is_absolutely_not_ladylike
Summary: The Arizona Shuffle requires four people, Hardison isn't sure how this is going to go.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Whoops [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893439
Comments: 7
Kudos: 164





	Whoops part deux

Hardison had settled in to the near immorality thing, it took a while but he got there. If some one had pressed him on it he would have said it was similar to hacking a Steranko, not that anyone was going to ask him to rate how he was adjusting to living for apparently millennia, but it was a similar experience something he would have liked to prep for months to do and even then would have been very careful about and instead had to dive right in to because his family needed him to. (Okay maybe there had been some flailing at first but give a him some credit he got there).

What Hardison was having a harder time with was Eliot’s apparent family of fellow immortals that came with all this. Don’t get him wrong he was glad there would be more than just the three of them for forever, Alec loves Parker and Eliot but sometimes he needs someone a little more normal to commiserate with, but the fact remains they were new and damn it Eliot he was going to take his time letting these people in to his family. (Not that it had taken more then one job for Alec to decide that Eliot, Parker, Sophie, and Nate were his family but they didn’t know that.) 

The initial introductions had gone okay; Andy was clearly the leader and reminded him of an odd mix of Nate and Tara (which was terrifying and probably did not bode well), Joe was very nice to talk to and was exactly the type of guy Alec used to go for before Parker and Eliot came on the scene, and Booker had even tried to talk to him about computers which was cute. He could see letting these people in, after a while after they showed they didn’t mean Parker any harm, and if they were all cool with the sleeping arrangements (Alec was protective of their relationship and he knew Eliot cared what these people thought, it had taken a while for Parker and him to convince El to fully join them all the time and they weren’t about to let him step back because of some old assholes) so far they hadn’t set off any alarms so things looked good. 

Nicky remained an enigma, Parker had spent an hour speaking to him in Italian after dinner (after accusing him of being the David [okay so he was the model for the David but that wasn’t the point Parker you cant just say your my little naked buddy to people, especially to people you just met]) and had declared later that night that she liked him which was not actually helpful in Hardison’s desire to suss him out. Eliot had said it was just Nicky’s nature to play it close to the vest but they would have known if he didn’t like them, apparently if he hadn’t liked them Joe would have been much less friendly, but Hardison wanted more.

Now he was going to get it, the next job (lets go steal a castle) necessitated The Arizona Shuffle which meant they needed a fourth person and Eliot had said he would get family help. So here they were... Hardison and Nicky in the rented stand in for Lucile 5... waiting... in excruciating silence.

“Do, uh, do you have everything you need?” Hardison asked lamely.

“Yes.” Monosyllabic as always, this was going to go so badly Alec just knew it they needed a grifter for this they should have just called Tara or literally any other of Eliot’s family, this was going to crash and burn (It was going to be Parker and the fork all over again) Hardison was going to have to do a quick scrub job and get them on flights out of the country immediately they were going to have to disappoint the client it was going to be terrible he just –

“Nicky, you’re on.” Eliot’s voice on the comms cut through Hardison’s planning, and Nicky left the van quiet as a church mouse. It was all Hardison could do to simply take a big swig of Orange soda and try to be causal about opening another tab to look at flights instead of voicing his discomfort. It was like working with Chaos all over again, but this time they didn’t get a bat-cave.

And then all of the sudden there was laughter over the comms, beautiful melodic laughter, and it as coming from Nicky. Hardison scrabbled back through his tabs to look over the security cameras, and there just at the corner of the camera just where he should have been was Nicky with one hand on the mark’s arm, the other holding a glass of champagne, and his head thrown back laughing like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Then he spoke a flow of easy Arabic, Syrian dialect if Hardison was hearing his pronunciations correctly, and the mark was hooked Hardison could see it and so could Nicky. 12 seconds and Nicky had the mark.

“Holy shit” was all Hardison could muster.

Once Nicky was in play it all just clicked, the job went smooth so damn smooth Hardison could hardly believe it. It went off exactly as Parker had planned and two days later they were parting at the airport; the three of them back to Portland and Nicky off to Malta.

“This was fun, we should do this again, call whenever you need.” Nicky was openly smiling at them, Hardison was shocked. Eliot just nodded in response, Parker even stepped in and hugged him (it was a blink and you’ll miss it hug but it was still a hug). Hardison waved lamely and Nicky walked off to meet his plane, when Alec was sure he was out of ear shot he rounded on Eliot. 

“You didn’t tell me he could grift!?!” Eliot just smiled like a pig in shit.

“Yeah who do you think taught me how to grift.”

“Oh no, you don’t grift you just flirt, that man… that man could out grift Sophie without even trying.”

“No way!” Parker was quick to jump to Sophie's defense.

“Oh yes he could! He had the mark in the palm of his hand in seconds, I was sure we were going to have to mad dash out of there but no, apparently we have the worlds best grifter!” Hardison was trying not to shout, he really was. Eliot’s shit eating grin remained.

“If you think he’s good on his own you should see what he and Joe can do together. A thousand years of experience does have its perks apparently.”

“And the Arabic too, it was prefect, and I though you said Joe was North African-” Hardison was on a roll there was no stopping him now so Eliot just cut it.

“He is, well now its Tunisia but then it was just you know-” he did not get to finish the thought because Hardison had more to say.

“But his Arabic was distinctly Syrian in dialect, there is a difference between Tunisian Arabic and Syrian Arabic, if you could even say that the language that Joe would have grown up speaking even is Tunisian Arabic. But that’s not the point the point was it was Perfect” Hardison knew on some level he had crossed in to speaking in capital letters but he could not stop “Every Decision He Made Was Perfect. And you didn’t tell us! You just let me seat in Lucile and sweat it out! Why didn’t you tell me!” It’s possible that Hardison’s feelings about Eliot not telling them other information about his life span was bleeding into this, he wouldn’t admit that but it’s possible it was happening. 

“I told you I would get help, he helped.”

The argument continued in this fashion for some time.

Later, much later after things had shifted and Nile had joined the team Hardison did get to see Nicky and Joe grifting together, to say it was a sight to behold would have been putting it mildly.

“They could grift Sophie and Nate.” Hardison was in awe.

“Who?” Nile, who was still learning and thus stuck in Lucile with Hardison so no one got forked, looked at him confused.

“What if they were grifting with Sophie and Tara” Parker sounded like someone had just handed her a pile of cash, that did not bode well for Hardison’s stress levels.

**Author's Note:**

> So to quote all three of my Arabic teachers, from separate occasions mind you, "Syrian Arabic is the most beautiful." So of course my beautiful boy Nicky had to have the most beautiful Arabic. Also apparently Hardison speaks enough Arabic to recognize dialect, who knew maybe he learns Arabic while at the gym (another mystery of his character we may never uncover.)


End file.
